![\"1191fb7792badffb27b5bbcedee22bf2u5\"](\"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1191fb7792badffb27b5bbcedee22bf2u5.jpg\" "\\"1191fb7792badffb27b5bbcedee22bf2u5\\"")
\nUnited States Department of Commerce Lutnik<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Following the release of the latest documents in Epstein\u2018s case, several U.S. congressmen have asked Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to resign on the grounds that he had \u201cliked\u201d about his relationship with the notorious wealthy businessman. Lutnick, according to Al Jazeera, told a Senate committee hearing on Tuesday that he \u201cbarely knew\u201d Epstein in response to the allegations.<\/p>\n
\nUnited States Department of Commerce Lutnik<\/p>\n
According to CNN, several emails recently released by the U.S. Department of Justice showed that Epstein invited Lutnick and his family to lunch on December 23, 2012, on his private island of Little St. James in the Caribbean, and Lutnick and his family accepted the invitation. This contradicts what Lutnick said last year. Lutnick then said on a podcast that he and Epstein had been neighbors and that around 2005, Epstein had invited him and his wife to his home and made sexual insinuations, and Lutnick vowed \u201cnever to be in the same room with Epstein again.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we believe these documents, Lutnick clearly went to that island. He did business with Epstein, and it was many years after Epstein was convicted,\u201d Thomas Messi, a Republican federal congressman pushing for the disclosure of the Epstein case documents, said on CNN. Messi said Lutnick needed to answer a lot of questions. \u201cHe should make life easier for President [Trump] and, frankly, he should resign.\u201d<\/p>\n
Robert Garcia, a Democrat from the House Oversight Committee, posted on social media that \u201cit is obvious that Minister of Commerce Lutnik is lying about his relationship with Epstein,\u201d \u201cLutnik must resign or be dismissed, and must answer our questions.\u201d Democrat Federal Senator Adam Schiff also accused Lutnik of \u201clying\u201d about the closeness of his relationship with Epstein, and said Lutnik \u201cis not qualified to serve as Minister of Commerce and should resign immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n
Al Jazeera in Qatar reported that in the face of calls for resignation, Lutnik told a Senate committee hearing on Tuesday that he \u201calmost didn\u2018t know\u201d Epstein. \u201cI had no relationship with him, I had almost nothing to do with that person,\u201d Lutnik said. At the hearing on Tuesday, when MPs pressed him about his remarks on the podcast last year, Lutnik insisted on minimizing his dealings with Epstein and emphasizing that nothing \u201cunappropriate\u201d had happened during that meeting in 2012. \u201cMy wife and I both know that I absolutely did nothing wrong in any way,\u201d Lutnik said.<\/p>\n
The White House also supported Lutnick. At a White House press conference on Tuesday, White House press secretary Caroline Levitt defended Lutnick. \u201cMinister Lutnick is still a very important member of President Trump\u2018s team, and the president fully supports the minister,\u201d she told reporters. Levitt also ignored reports that Neville Maxwell, Epstein\u2018s former girlfriend, was seeking an amnesty from Trump, saying it was \u201cnot a government priority.\u201d A White House spokesperson had responded on September that Lutnick would continue in office. CNN reported that Trump said about the Epstein case documents mentioning Lutnick and others, \u201cI think they\u2018re okay, otherwise it would be headline news.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lutnik is another political and business elite recently under pressure for his involvement with the bankrupt financier. On local time, 10, U.S. Democratic congressman Roe Connor also read out the names of six \u201crich and powerful men\u201d in the House of Representatives, whose names were hidden from the Epstein case documents previously released by the U.S. Department of Justice. These include Leslie Wexler, former owner of Victoria\u2018s Secret, a underwear brand, and Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, chief executive of the UAE\u2018s Dubai World Port Company.<\/p>\n
The other four were Salvatore Nuara, Zurab Miklaz\u00e9, Leonid Leonov, and Nikola Caputo. According to the U.S. Politica website, Connor did not provide evidence that they were involved in the crime.<\/p>\n
Epstein was convicted in 2008 for inciting underage prostitution, was arrested again in July 2019 for suspected sex crimes, and died in prison in August 2019, being convicted of \u201csuicide.\u201d However, the widely circulated story is that Epstein died violently because he possessed a \u201cclient list\u201d used to blackmail prominent people. Documents released by the Justice Department show that Epstein was associated with numerous celebrities in European and American politics, business, and academia during his lifetime. As the Epstein case continues to ferment, multinational political celebrities are affected. The British government is currently in a political crisis due to Epstein\u2018s association with Peter Mandelson, the former British ambassador to the United States. In October last year, King Charles III also stripped his brother Andrew of all his titles after growing evidence of his relationship with Epstein. But there are almost no signs that the United States is about to face a similar settlement. Trump had previously called the censorship of the Epstein documents a \u201cfraud\u201d and a \u201cconspiracy\u201d led by the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is undermining the British government, potentially undermining the monarchy, and subverting the elite,\u201d said Democrat Kanner. \u201cWhat have we done in the United States against people like Epstein? Our commerce secretary is everywhere in these documents.\u201d Republican Macy wrote on social media that Lutnik\u2018s contradictory remarks raised questions that needed to be addressed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Following the release of the latest documents in Epstein\u2018s case, several U.S. congressmen have asked Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to resign on the grounds that he had \u201cliked\u201d about… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[260,257],"tags":[4334,4332,1265,4333,4285],"views":106,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8071"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8071"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8073,"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8071\/revisions\/8073"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}